Ghent resident Amanda Judge is a brilliant example of a young, socially-minded entrepreneur. She is the creator and owner of Faire Collection, an accessories company that supplies fair trade jewelry, scarves and other fashion goods to thousands of boutique around the world. Since 2008, Judge has set up 10 workshops for artisans in Ecuador, Vietnam and Swaziland; they make the goods she designs. “We make sure the artisans are getting good wages for the work they’re doing," she says, which helps create a meaningful path to prosperity in impoverished communities. Holiday shoppers in the Rural Intelligence region can buy these artisans' fashionable work, deeply discounted, at the Faire Collection popup store in Chatham (information at the end of the story). I started Faire Collection about 8 years ago. At the time I was finishing up my master’s degree in economic development and was doing research in Ecuador. Through my research I came up with the idea of using artisan materials and stepping up the game in design. Instead of writing an academic thesis, I wrote up a business plan. Within a year we had our first corporate clients, including Anthropologie. We were one of the first to bring the fair trade industry into the fashion mainstream and work with major fashion retailers such as J.Jill and Tommy Bahama. Previously corporate clients weren’t confident that fair trade products could produce to their needs, but we were able to show that we could.
Judge sourcing tagua seeds with farmers and an artisan in the coastal region of Ecuador.
I ran the company out of Brooklyn until we moved to Ghent a year-and-a-half ago. As I traveled to visit the artisans, who live in rural areas, I realized I felt so different in places with big open sky, and there was such a sense of peace when I could see stars, which I never saw in Brooklyn. My husband and I fell in love with the Hudson Valley, and we love our neighbors and the people we meet out here. Our favorite places to eat are Ben Gable Savories in Chatham, The Flammerie in Kinderhook, and Bonfiglio & Bread in Hudson. I had a baby in April so I'm often at The Bee’s Knees in Hudson, and we’ve taken her on hikes on Columbia Land Conservancy trails. People have suggested that I open a Faire Collection store and I think it would be a great fit for Hudson, but with my daughter so young and with the traveling I do, I don’t think I’d be the one to get that up and going now. But it’s fun to have the holiday popup store right in town! The Faire Collection Popup Warehouse Sale Jewelry, hats and scarves discounted up to 95 percent. Open every Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. – 3p.m. until Christmas. 25 Hudson Avenue, Chatham
